The Great Ones
by A. J. Gustin Priest, Idaho 1918
Chapter X: 1955: The Good, Rich Gift of Laughter
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Given my extreme lunacy, I thought it best to demonstrate that this quality is by no means limited to some dull old computer scientist in the early 2000s. True, I have not found any Z-name for our dragon, but I was able to find a slightly soiled text file with some of A.J.G. Priest's The Great Ones. This little volume contains ten addresses from the conventions from 1946 through 1955, in which A.J. gave an introduction to various major characters from our history: Knox and the founders, Shep, Robb, Hanna, Baird, Sisson and Fitch, Ransom, Chandler, and the song-writers. That's nine. But there was the last, which was the speech for 1955 - a great year for Beta due to a completely different reason, which I shall not reveal here! (Ahem.)
There is a mystic significance to Priest's selection of humor as the last of his topics - not mystic in the Beta sense, but in the far more profound human sense: something well-known and yet inexplicable. The wise G. K. Chesterton (though not a Beta) said it this way: "The whole secret of mysticism is this:
that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid."
So, if you think it inappropriate to laugh about the dragon by any other name, do not read it. But if you like to laugh, or at the least wish to learn how much our brothers of the past delighted in laughter, then read on.
-kai-
Dr. Thursday
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This is the tenth - and last - in a series of talks about the Great Ones of Beta Theta Pi. It began with verses from the inspired pen of Edgar Lee Masters and it has attempted, for this generation, to italicize the significance of our quite unusual leadership.
Most of those who have guided the fraternity have been persons in their own right; others have discovered in Beta Theta Pi the golden "fellowship of wisdom and dreams." That they have been an extraordinary group this series has sought to recall rather than to prove. Advocacy was not required. The only endeavor has been to direct attention to qualities of mind and heart which have developed a great fraternity.
Kindliness, tolerance, insight, understanding, patience, first-rate intelligence, often warm eloquence, and, in addition to much else, the good, rich gift of laughter - all these were theirs, and were used generously. If I may single out only two of the group, William Raimond Baird and Francis Wayland Shepardson were beyond all question the first Greeks of their time. Their primacy was accepted throughout the college fraternity world and I rather doubt that equal recognition has been accorded any other fraternity.
Tonight I am to talk about Wooglin's humorists, about certain fraternity leaders who saw life whole and who, perhaps because they did, were able to smile at it. They are the earth's anointed, the kindly, the gentle, the serene, who discerned and relished humor and who expressed it, brightening other lives as well as their own.
The importance of this conception is stressed in Aubrey Mennen's shrewd retelling of that vivid Hindu epic, "The Ramayana." This final question is put by Prince Rama to Valmiki, who has been his tutor, philosopher and friend, "In this world of illusion, is there anything you believe in as real?"
"Certainly," Valmiki replies. "Three things: God, human folly and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third."
Howard Webster Adams, Indiana 1905, belongs high on any such list as we are examining. He was a long-time District Chief, he served as toastmaster at numerous convention banquets and he had the happy faculty of being able to express humorous nuances in seven or eight languages. Webb's anecdotes ranged the globe. When he told British stories, his gentlemen of Piccadilly strolled down Mayfair with monocle in eye and stick in hand; when his subject matter was Scandinavian the listener's ear caught, like a faint violin obligatto, the rattling of round tins of Copenhagen snoose; and when he told Irish stories, the blessed shillelaghs themselves could be heard playing softly upon Hibernian skulls. There, Brother Chairman, was a raconteur!
One of the gentlest and kindliest of all the fraternity's leaders was George Howard Bruce, Centre 1899, General Secretary from 1917 to 1926, an outstanding educator under whom many who later were to become general officers of the fraternity served as District Chiefs. One of George Bruce's most appealing characteristics was his sharp, if unobtrusive, sense of humor. Indeed, many of us suffered from time to time under its chastening sting.
George's follicular foliage was somewhat less than lush and luxurious; and as an impertinent young District Chief whose hair was distinctly pinker and more ample than it is now, I remember suggesting to him, "Brother Bruce, I guess you just weren't around when St. Peter was handing out the hair, were you? "
George Howard looked me over sternly and a little sadly before he replied, "Ah, yes, A. J., my boy, I was there. But all he had left was red hair."
Brother Bruce was an enlightenedly orthodox Presbyterian and, at the wedding of Louise and Gordon Smyth, I recall having said to the kindly minister who performed the service, "Doctor, you may not believe this, but my friend Mr. Bruce here is so completely Calvinistic that he actually believes in infant damnation."
Again the slow, gentle appraisal. And again the soft reply, "I certainly would, A. J., if you were an infant."
George Bruce was entirely too faithful a Christian to use the expletives which sometimes bubbled unbidden to the lips of lesser Betas, this speaker among them. Yet he, too, had his moments of deep exasperation on the golf course. For example, when he dubbed a short approach shot, he would sometimes exclaim, "Peanuts," and then, when he missed a three-foot putt, he had been heard passionately to ejaculate, "Double peanuts!" I'll confess that I have often heard stronger, but vastly less scorching, profanity.
One of George Bruce's District Chiefs was William Warren Dawson, Ohio Wesleyan 1914, who was an admirable chief, an altogether exemplary Vice President and Trustee and a brilliant President of the fraternity. Bill Dawson had the good lawyer's talent for assembling the facts completely, and his gift of analysis was crisp and certain. On occasion the Omega Gamma chapter, let us say, would have difficulty and Bill would be put in charge. All the circumstances would be his in an afternoon, that night the problem would be solved and in another day Bill would persuade the leaders of the undergraduate and alumni bodies to accept his solution and to put it into effect. He had an immense capacity for winning the other person's confidence and then directing it into the right channels. Furthermore, he used that capacity time after time for the strengthening of the fraternity. I doubt that we can ever be sufficiently grateful to him.
I know but few men who loved a good story as Bill did. His laugh was deep and warm and infectious, delighting and carrying along all who heard it. For more than 20 years I had saved my choicest anecdotes for Bill's regalement, and I am sure the habit will persist. Let me say here that if, by some peculiar Puritan twist, humor has been barred from Bill's area of the Undiscovered Country, he and I will seek out another section. I need hardly suggest that we shall be in good company when we do.
For many years, the Dawson family cook was one Aunt Lucinda, whose husband once was accused of purloining an automobile with felonious intent. Bill was employed as his attorney and succeeded in demonstrating to a Cleveland jury's entire satisfaction that the accused must have been in Toledo or Cincinnati, or both, when the automobile was mislaid. Aunt Lucinda was restrained from praying publicly while the court was in session, but when the jury retired, she exhorted long and earnestly. Then the verdict of acquittal was brought in and Aunt Lucinda marched triumphantly down the broad court house steps exulting, "Praise th' Lawd! Praise Lawyer Dawson! Praise th' Lawd! Praise Lawyer Dawson! He's a' extra average man! "
So he was, in all respects, an extra average man - as a lawyer and teacher of the law, as a soldier and as an administrator bringing hope and enlightenment to the German people; yes, and as one of the gifted leaders of Beta Theta Pi.
Bill Dawson was one of those who understood the uses of humor; he knew, for example, that the effect of ridicule may be deadly. Let me give you a 1938 episode that involved Bill and a certain Dr. Wagner, who was attached to the German consulate at Cleveland. Nazism had a certain fascination for some Americans at that period and Dr. Wagner had been riding the wave buoyantly. He had been particularly successful with academic people in the Cleveland area who had studied in Germany or who had German connections. And then he encountered Bill Dawson.
The meeting had been arranged at the Dawson farm in Brecksville and Dr. Wagner arrived just as Bill was hiving a swarm of bees about to yield to the suzerainty of their new queen.
"So interesting, Herr Professor Dawson," said Dr. Wagner. "So interesting! You will observe that we have here the fuehrer principle in nature."
Bill Dawson turned on his brightest and most urbane smile.
"I shall be interested in human fuehrers," he replied, "when you show me one who can lay eggs! "
Dr. Wagner executed an abrupt, military about-face. He did not look back. Nor did he remain long in Cleveland.
I have mentioned the uses of humor. Unfortunately there are still a few, even among the wearers of our eight-sided Grecian badge, who do not understand how humor should be employed; who, in particular, are not aware that laughter is required as an alleviator of tension, as a dissipator of the raptly serious. Such gentry used to distress me, but now that my 60th birthday is not so far away, they no longer do. Nor should they perturb you. The emotion which they properly evoke is affectionate sympathy, commingled with appropriate pity.
I am frankly sorry for the man who does not yield himself to laughter, who is not seized upon and convulsed by it. Perhaps you are a connoisseur of humor. You may well remain wholly unaffected by the twice or the thrice told tale. But when you really are amused, I venture to hope that you let yourself go. Knowing how to laugh deeply and fully is at once one of the most satisfying and the most refreshing of all arts. Certainly I could not imagine a protracted stretch on the psychiatric couch for a man who could be heartily amused by himself.
Do you know the first recorded humorous effort in Beta Theta Pi? No one can be sure, but Michael Clarkson Ryan at least used a thoroughly established American technique when he wrote to Pater Knox on March 27, 1841: "Business is very brisk in town now. You might stand on the public square any hour of the day and you would not see a single wagon." That is, of course, the ages-old twist of understatement, and it belongs, like its counterpart, exaggeration, to the humor of the frontier. You will remember that Paul Bunyan's mighty blue ox, Babe, measured 42 axehandles and a plug of tobacco between the eyes. And in converse vein, you might stand on your public square any hour of the day and not see a single wagon. Mendacity, to be sure, but for the sweet sake of amusement.
Dr. Shepardson has reported that David Linton wrote often and entertainingly about a certain red-haired girl Pater Knox loved. He said that if he ever had a red-haired child, he would drown it. Fate brought him two such children and he seems to have been especially devoted to them. I think you will recall that Founder Linton was a Quaker and that he was often referred to as "the laughing philosopher." In conversation, he seldom offered contradiction or demurrer, but listened, and when he did not agree, literally laughed his opponent out of court.
Now if you will wing yourselves more than a century from the Founders to the scene which lies around us today, I would like particularly to cite as one of Wooglin's foremost humorists our outgoing Vice President and Trustee, Clem B. Holding, North Carolina 1918. Those of you who attended the Bigwin convention of 1950, which he served as president, will remember his story-telling gifts. And those talents have been fully brought home at other gatherings of the fraternity. If her beneficent majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, ever establishes the honorable company of Knights Commander of the Order of the Raconteur, Clem most certainly must be among the earliest designated. If only I might be the first to address him as "Sir Clem"! Women and children should not be present, but it will be an instructive moment.
At the Pasadena convention of 1953, we had one exceedingly tense period. The group was strongly and earnestly divided and what might have been real hurt to the fraternity seemed possible. Then Clem told a story indicating that things are not always what they seem. I shall not repeat it for two reasons: first, it is his and you should hear it from his own lips and, second, it is impossible wholly to reproduce its setting. But I say to you quite flatly that, the occasion and the opportunity considered, it was the best anecdote I have ever heard.
The tale was not new to me and yet I laughed until I cried. I repeat that the moment was an agonizingly tense one and yet when Clem sat down, the relaxation, the blessed ease, had spread like April sunshine over the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia or, if you please, over Idaho's snow-capped Owyhees. Clem had told the perfect story on the perfect occasion. Only to a favored few does Providence accord that summum bonum. Clem's aureole is not apparent to the undiscerning, but in the minds of those who heard him, it will glow forever and forever.
There are perhaps a good many of us who are devoted to humor and yet are not often its public practitioners. For example, my cherished friends, the Smi(y)th brothers, Gordon S., Pennsylvania 1918, and G. Herbert, DePauw 1927, and my colleague on the Board of Trustees, Elmer H. Jennings, Northwestern 1912, all great servants and great lovers of Beta Theta Pi, yield themselves to laughter and profoundly enjoy it, but they are not characteristically tinklers of the buffoon's bells. Nor do I quarrel too seriously with the discretion which they exercise.
I think the University of Virginia's contribution to this symposium should come from my law school colleague, Col. Hardy C. Willard, Virginia 1883, who spoke brilliantly and memorably at the centennial anniversary banquet of his Omicron chapter this past June. Hardy tells about another associate of ours whose teenage son could quote baseball statistics like a sports encyclopedia, but whose academic interests were less than ardent. Finally the boy seemed to be enthusiastic about a course in the history of civilization at his preparatory school and his father was delighted. Thinking to probe the young man's knowledge, the father inquired, "Henry, have you come across Copernicus? Can you tell me who Copernicus was?" The lad listened intently, knit his brow and replied, "I'm sure I've heard of him. Can't you please give me just one little hint? Dad, what position did he play? "
William L. (Billy) Graves, Ohio State 1893, warmly devoted Beta who is said to have visited our Theta Delta chapter house more than 5,000 times, was toastmaster at one of the convention banquets of the early '30's, after having spent the Summer in England. George V then reigned and it will be recalled that his consort, the late and magnificent Queen Mary, quite soared over him. I remember especially that Billy observed, "And if George and Mary ever quarrel, it's going to be a case of 'God save the King'. "
I also remember having heard that delightful Beta veteran, Dr. H. Sheridan Baketel, Dartmouth 1895, a rare spirit who was taken from us only last month. account for his election to the Board of Trustees of the fraternity. He spoke of one Elmer Digby, whose antecedents were doubtful and whose present distinctions were negligible, but who had been chosen a deacon of his church. "Well," Elmer had declared, "d'rough element got together and decided one of our boys was go' be put over." Of course the fact was that "Bake" had thoroughly earned his place on the Board of Trustees by long, devoted and greatly effective service as a District Chief.
One of the towering figures of his time, his name probably better known throughout the world than that of any other American except the then current occupant of the White House, was William Edgar Borah, Kansas 1889, for many years chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and always an interested Beta. I once asked Senator Borah for the most completely devastating bit of repartee he ever had heard on the Senate floor and he told me this story:
An outstanding personal feud on the Democratic side of the Senate was that between John Sharp Williams of Mississippi and Furnifold Simmons of North Carolina, who hated each other with all the passionate enthusiasm of their ardent natures. One day Senator Simmons was making a speech on the Senate floor when John Sharp came reeling down the aisle toward his desk. Simmons forgot that liquor unhinged John Sharp's knees long before it affected his keen brain and he said tartly, "I would like to observe, Mr. President, that whenever I address the Senate of the United States, I am always in full possession of my faculties." John Sharp was quite deaf and he inquired, "What's that?" "I would like to repeat, sub, for your particular benefit, sub," Simmons replied, "that whenever I address the Senate of the United States, I am always in full possession of my faculties!" Senator Williams snorted contemptuously. "Huh!" he said, "what good does that do you?"
Many years ago, I heard in Columbia, S.C., the account of the battle of Sand Ridge. It was told by Major Hezekiah Staunton, who said that he had been a member of our old South Carolina chapter. The fragmentary records do not bear him out, but that has nothing to do with the Major's endowments as a raconteur. He was greatly given to tales of the War Between the States and on one occasion it was my privilege to listen to him. I obviously can offer you only a greatly condensed version.
"Yes, my dear friends," said he, "the Men in Blue formed on the northern side of the ridge. They wore handsome, new, whole uniforms; they carried the best Model 1861 rifles; they had eaten three meals the day before and I would have you know that they all had shoes.
"Arrayed on the southern side of the ridge were the embattled forces of the Confederacy. Our uniforms were in tatters; our weapons were ancient percussion muskets; every man of us was hungry and our feet were bound in rags. Yet so fired and inspired were we by our zeal for our great and righteous cause that we moved forward and we swept them Yankees before us like chaff, suh."
Then the querulous voice of Abel Hoffman spoke up from another corner of the room.
"But, Major," he declared, "that just ain't right. I fit the Battle of Sand Ridge too. I fit not ten feet from you! And them damn Yankees was too many for us that day. They run us down the valley about ten miles! "
The Major choked, then expectorated harshly. "Huh," he said, "another perfectly good story ruined by a damned eye witness!"
As I have attempted to recount the virtues of the Great Ones of Beta Theta Pi - and this has been particularly true in recent years - the question has been asked, "In your opinion, was there a first among the foremost" I have avoided answering, but in this last talk, the time may well have come for a reply.
Permit me to say, then, that in my own time, the greatest of the Betas was and is Dr. Shepardson. I am aware that he had his failings, and I think some of the others did not, but for a period of thirty years, Shep was the personification of the fraternity. He certainly knew more Betas than any man who ever lived and he gave us so completely the very stuff of life itself that the recognition which I now suggest is not to be denied him.
Shep enjoyed and appreciated humor, but in all the years I knew him, I heard him deliberately reach for a laugh only three times. One of his stories involved an Indiana author who, back in the brave, old days when Indianapolis was the literary capital of America, was transferred to a large city on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. He epitomized his catastrophe by saying, "Good-bye, God, I'm going to Chicago!" However, in the merest fortnight, he had become infused with the spirit of the Illinois metropolis and when he was called upon to speak at an Indianapolis luncheon, his emphasis had been changed: "Good, by God, I'm going to Chicago! "
I have spoken of George Howard Bruce and I cannot mention him without referring also to two of his most intimate friends and associates, James L. Gavin, DePauw 1896 and John Allan Blair, Wabash 1893.
Jim Gavin's record as treasurer of Beta Theta Pi was unparalleled either in our own or any other fraternity. He served forty-two annual terms and at each convention he was able, amazingly to report, "All accounts collected, all bills paid." He was both a successful lawyer and an outstanding business man and he had a deep, warm, outgoing affection for this fraternity and for its members, young and old. Jim had been a top?flight tackle at DePauw and he was a big man from any point of view. I am sure the veterans will recall that at one of our Bigwin Inn conventions of the 20's, mention was made of the establishment's rotunda and that Johnny Blair rose to observe, "Boys, if you want to know what a rotunda is look at Jim Gavin."
[(some text lost here) Dr. Blair was] leading ministers of the Presbyterian Church and he was for many years minister-at-large to Beta Theta Pi itself. He was an inspiring District Chief; he was a forceful and effective Trustee and Vice President; he spoke often and with telling eloquence at our convention banquets; it was he who paid tender and appealing tribute to Dr. Shepardson at the memorial exercises held at Granville, Ohio, after Shep's death in August, 1937, and his Sunday vesper services at our Centennial provided one of the glowing features of that great occasion. Dr. Blair's mother was initiated into the fraternity in 1861 in order to preserve the secret papers of our Wabash chapter when Tau's undergraduate group entered the Union forces as a body. That rare person was one of only three women ever entitled to wear the Beta badge in their own right and each of them was initiated under circumstances of extreme emergency.
In the years I knew him, Johnny Blair's hair was gray; his eyes were large and sparkling; his other features were somewhat rugged and yet handsome; and he had in overflowing measure the quality which can perhaps only be described as "presence." He had the true Christian's genuine humility, but his personality quite suffused any gathering at which he was present.
I first heard Johnny Blair speak formally at the Estes Park convention banquet of September, 1921. There were others on the program - Shep, of course, and certainly one or more local figures - but now that more than a third of a century has passed, it is Johnny whom I remember.
In his peroration, he had referred to the rugged boulders which mark the right of way of the New Haven railroad, saying that he had seen them glorified by climbing roses in the Spring. He also recounted a Beta experience which is not unusual in the Rockies - that of thrilling as our pink and blue become radiant in an evening sky over the harsh ridges of the front Range. Then he closed with this sentence which I think I should not forget even if another lifetime were allotted to me:
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Let us see the pink and blue above the granite;
let us crown the rocks with roses.
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Dr. Blair wrote, with Clarence Dickinson, Northwestern 1894 (who supplied the music), our stirring Centennial Hymn, which certainly deserves more general popularity than it has thus far attained. Let me attempt to indicate its quality by quoting only the last two verses:
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We thank Thee for our hundred years
Of love and faith and mystic truth;
For friendship's bond that time endears
As age fulfills the hopes of youth.
Our solemn vows we here renew.
We pledge ourselves with loyal hearts,
To Beta - to be ever true
Till ages end and time departs.
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I offer you only two brief quotations from Dr. Blair's address at the vesper services which ornamented our Centenary celebration. Their inherent excellence seems to me completely to justify their repetition tonight.
For a fraternity preserves the morning powers, keeps the vision glowing. Years mean little or nothing. We follow a path upon which light shines from within us. No true fraternity member ever knows the day when that light dies.
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It is well to cherish the outward form of Beta Theta Pi, and make it as beautiful and perfect as we can. But if we would have it eternal, we must conceive that outward form as the symbol of an invisible and inward grace, a sacrament; we must transform the outward perfectness into love, for
that is spirit, which alone endures forever. Against love the powers of death cannot prevail. It is outside time's jurisdiction.
Brother Chairman, I think I cannot better close this series than with the verses which began it:
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O great ones, who though dead yet live
And O ye great ones over the earth who shall never die,
Leave ajar the gates of your paradise of light,
That we may commune with you, and rise
From the commonalty of little living
To the fellowship of wisdom and dreams.
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